Megathread Sonic Frontiers (2022) | MT | General Discussion (DO NOT discuss leaks here please)

[Diogenes]

I would say combat absolutely is the focus of most Kirby games. His "powerups" are mostly about having new ways to attack, with only limited and occasional puzzle-solving or movement-focused effects. And a lot of the games have the Arena or a similar sidegame and a secret superboss or two, because boss fights are the ultimate test of how well you can control Kirby. Platforming, on the other hand, is pretty simple, since Kirby can fly (and usually infinitely).

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, light-gaia said:

Iizuka hasn't even describe how the gameplay is going to be. Everything he said is vague and the only thing we can assume is that the game is going to be different from previous entries, and it'll have a different combat style. Having a different combat style doesn't mean the game is going to be a beat'em up. Kirby games have combat styles, are they beat'em up or hack's slash games? No.

Platformers should have a balance between combat, exploration and good level design.

Complaining about that is being blindly pessimistic. As someone said before, he could say "we are developing a video game", and people would still be mad and complaining about that.

Complaining about vague things he said it's just being blindly pessimistic. They haven't show any gameplay yet, and everything he said is vague.

Yea whatever, I heard it all before. I don't care.

[light-gaia]

It's funny when Sonic Generations fans act like everyone is 100% happy with a game like Generations. Like no one complains about the length of the game, or the lack of a better story, when this is not the case at all.

11 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I would say combat absolutely is the focus of most Kirby games. His "powerups" are mostly about having new ways to attack, with only limited and occasional puzzle-solving or movement-focused effects. And a lot of the games have the Arena or a similar sidegame and a secret superboss or two, because boss fights are the ultimate test of how well you can control Kirby. Platforming, on the other hand, is pretty simple, since Kirby can fly (and usually infinitely).

Yeah, you are right, Kirby wasn't a good example. I only mentioned because Kirby's combat it's still very simple, for example, the enemies don't have health bar and only take a few hits to be defeated.

But games the show better how combat could work with Sonic gameplay are the ones I mentioned before: Spark the Electric Jester series, Freedom Planet, and Solar Ashes.

[KHCast]

32 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

The most rational attitude is wait and see. Jumping to conclusions about the game being bad or being a masterpiece are both irrational.

You act like you can’t “wait and see” and also act vocally concerned about certain aspects. You people always tend to immediately jump to the games defense and rush to immediate extremes about how “you guys just always complain about every little thing announced” and frankly, it’s gotten old and predictable

 

32 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

Nah, I'm a huge Zelda fan and I played every single 3D entry, they are not perfect

No one said otherwise, however this idea it’s comparable to sonics situation is laughable, as for sonic to need to “evolve, and drop traditions” that would require they had gotten basics down of those traditions in the first place to the point that people started to get tired of them and want something fresh. Yknow, like Zelda and Mario have done? There’s a reason a bunch of people still clamor for more mania, or sonic adventure shit 

Quote

It's funny when Sonic Generations fans act like everyone is 100% happy with a game like Generations. Like no one complains about the length of the game, or the lack of a better story, when this is not the case at all.

What is with you guys and putting words in peoples mouths regarding sonic? No one said everyone was 100% happy with generations, or that there weren’t issues. We’re saying many people liked and replayed the game a lot despite said issues. The worst I saw regarding criticism of its length, regardeda desire to see like 2 or 3 more stages, which honestly, wouldn’t have stretched out the playtime that much. People are a lot more forgiving of game length when the game is actually fun. Not everything needs to be a 30 hour main campaign with Ubisoft type extra busywork throughout the map in order to be successful. 

[light-gaia]

3 minutes ago, KHCast said:

You act like you can’t “wait and see” and also act vocally concerned about certain aspects. You people always tend to immediately jump to the games defense and rush to immediate extremes about how “you guys just always complain about every little thing announced” and frankly, it’s gotten old and predictable

 

No one said otherwise, however this idea it’s comparable to sonics situation is laughable, as for sonic to need to “evolve, and drop traditions” that would require they had gotten basics down of those traditions in the first place to the point that people started to get tired of them and want something fresh. Yknow, like Zelda and Mario have done? There’s a reason a bunch of people still clamor for more mania, or sonic adventure shit 

Nops, they are very comparable because you are acting like because the Adventure formula, and the boost formula are praised by fans and critics, that means they are perfect formulas and there's no room for improvement. And you specifically said the Zelda traditional formula has reached perfection, when it hasn't.

[KHCast]

19 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

Nops, they are very comparable because you are acting like because the Adventure formula, and the boost formula are praised by fans and critics, that means they are perfect formulas and there's no room for improvement.

I’m actually saying the opposite, that there’s lots of room for improvement of previous entries, so the idea they need to “evolve and ditch series traditions” shouldn’t even be on the table yet.

 

19 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

And you specifically said the Zelda traditional formula has reached perfection, when it hasn't.

Zelda has been pretty consistent and repeated the same base gameplay for its mainline 3D entries since OoT, and the devs felt they probably couldn’t do much more with it in regards to anything massive that would change up the formula. Sonic hasn’t had that luxury of decades long refinement on a consistent working formula. They never had a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” phase even comparable to Zelda. Closest you can argue is probably the boost formula, and arguably that was also pretty inconsistent in its quality and execution, as Unleashed daytime was mixed, colors wasn’t really 3D, Gens was better than the previous 2 but still suffered from many issues regarding the boost formula, and Forces just stopped all momentum from Generations reception, and butchered all its potential.
 

That’s not the same as me saying Zelda’s gameplay reached perfection by the way. That’s me saying Zelda has had a consistent run of quality that sonic has not had 

[azoo]

This game sounds less like it’s gonna be anything of a “beat-em-up” and far more of an action-adventure game. BotW has both combat and traversal as it’s focus, and that’s obviously what they’re aiming to ape. Well, that and PSO2, which Sonic Team worked on (so go figure)!

I’m not a fan of the change from a platformer to an action game either, but look at the past 30 years of Sega and it’s clear that their interests are more for things specifically Japanese, which platforming has never been. If this is another initiative to make Sonic popular in Japan, that sounds about right.

[Wraith]

The way Breath of the Wild chose which Zelda staples to keep and which to drop was surgical and calculated. I would even argue that they didn't really drop many actual traditions at all. The first Zelda game is an open world game for all intents and purposes. The games always focused on this triple pronged gameplay loop of puzzles, exploration, and combat and BOTW carries that through. The artstyle changed, but mostly in ways that made sense from a practical standpoint without throwing the way the series's tone. They dropped bloat like an overt story focus and linearity because it was obvious those took away from the Zelda experience, and added things like a more nuanced weapon system, weather, physics systems and more ways to travel to make the act of exploration more exciting. The overworld focus just brought dense challenges that used to be locked away in buildings on opposite ends of the map out in the field to make the field gameplay worthwhile instead of it just being filler between dungeons.

It's a very considerate restructuring that's ultimately trying to preserve Zelda's true spirit after it threatened to get washed away when the series got overly focused on linearity, suffocating story elements and boring sword combat. Sonic fans so eager to bring it up need to realize that it's reverent of the classic Zelda games, both narratively and mechanically. It didn't just throw everything away for no reason.

A Sonic equivalent to BOTW would be as enthusiastic about the franchise's roots and cut out any bloat that got in the way of emphasizing them. The original Sonic games were linear series of challenges that Sonic could approach in a few different ways with smart movement. A Sonic equivalent to BOTW wouldn't be an open world ARPG. It'd be a linear platformer with a pure focus on movement and arcadey game mechanics that promoted replayability and mastery.

Sonic Frontiers....couldn't sound further from that. Most new additions to the formula seem like they're thoughtlessly strapping stuff on from other action games again which is hard for me to compliment them for. All that really is is just pandering to fans of more successful games when you get down to it. There's nothing bold or creative about it.

[light-gaia]

4 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I’m actually saying the opposite, that there’s lots of room for improvement of previous entries, so the idea they need to “evolve and ditch series traditions” shouldn’t even be on the table yet.

 

Zelda has been pretty consistent and repeated the same base gameplay for its mainline 3D entries since OoT, and the devs felt they probably couldn’t do much more with it in regards to anything massive that would change up the formula. Sonic hasn’t had that luxury of decades long refinement on a consistent working formula. They never had a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” phase even comparable to Zelda. Closest you can argue is probably the boost formula, and arguably that was also pretty inconsistent in its quality and execution, as Unleashed daytime was mixed, colors wasn’t really 3D, Gens was better than the previous 2 but still suffered from many issues regarding the boost formula, and Forces just stopped all momentum from Generations reception, and butchered all its potential.
 

That’s not the same as me saying Zelda’s gameplay reached perfection by the way. That’s me saying Zelda has had a consistent run of quality that sonic has not had 

The adventure formula, and boost formula aren't broken, but their combat mechanics are. As I said before, the enemies only exist to be run over by Sonic, to serve as bridges between platforms, and to be hit with overpowered homming attacks.

Takashi Iizuka has said in recent interviews that Frontiets is still going to be focused on high-speed action like Sonic Generations and Forces (he who brought these two as examples). And, we already know from the leaks that Frontiets will still have boost-style levels.

So, it doesn't seem to me they are making a whole new experience from scratch, they are finally trying to improve Sonic's 3D core gameplay flaws (for example, the combat).

As I said before, the combat wasn't a problem in the 2D classic formula, but it's a problem of the 3D formula.

And again, they could fail pretty badly, but I don't think it makes sense to say they shouldn't try to fix something just because they tried before and it didn't work. The problem is still there and it still needs to be fixed.

[ZinogreVolt]

Kirby games being combat focused really depends on the game, I would say it really doesn't in the case of some of the older games but most of the modern games lean heavily into combat/boss battles/puzzle-solving. I don't think that would actually be that bad a fit for Frontiers, provided combat doesn't slow down the platforming and speed too terribly much.

[light-gaia]

16 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

Kirby games being combat focused really depends on the game, I would say it really doesn't in the case of some of the older games but most of the modern games lean heavily into combat/boss battles/puzzle-solving. I don't think that would actually be that bad a fit for Frontiers, provided combat doesn't slow down the platforming and speed too terribly much.

Spark the Electric Jester 2 is an indie 3D platformer heavily inspired by Sonic Adventure 2, there are looping and other Sonic elements. But the character has some combat skills, and it really improved the experience. I really like Solar Ashes combat, too, the character moves really fast, and the combos don't break the pace. Another example is Kingdom Hearts 2, in this case the game has nothing to do with Sonic, but it has a very fast-paced combat and Sonic Team could take a little bit of inspiration from it.

[Kazhnuz]

Even if it's 100% sure that BotW and the rise of game inspired by it had a huge impact in the creation of this game, I would say that there is also a precedent of having a while to go to these kind of elements in Sonic. Especially the will of making more "RPG-y" games that appeared and disappeared several time since SA1. Moreover, a big part of what SEGA CS do nowadays is some kinds of RPG with action added in it. So I'm not surprised that in Sonic Team, there are people willing to make such a game (especially considering who is the producer).

It doesn't make the BotW inspiration less blatant tho, I'm just saying that it doesn't surprise me that much. (They also don't bother me, but that's another subject than their existence)

 

I'm wondering if some of the RPG-y mechanics from previous game will be reused/adapted in the Frontiers game design. And I hope that the skills that are behind the skill tree won't be usefull for moving and will be mostly "make your Sonic better"/"battle moves". IMO, XP for that kind of game should not be needed for stuff that make you able to travel the map. (I hope that they'll use some equivalent of SA upgrade for that, or maybe simply let us have everything to travel from the get-go ? There is a possibility that you'll free each one of Sonic friends which will give you a power, à la BotW).

That's where the fact they're going to a more "Action Adventure" game makes me interested : I hope that this time, RPG-y elements will have a deeper integration to the game design, whereas in previous game, they felt more like just some kind of topping.

I'm a bit cautious about that the gameplay loop we can speculate from the leak (which seems to imply that we have to do the "find x orbs to beat up x boss to get to cyberspace levels to get the 7 CE and beat the titan" four times) seems to fall in the Unleashed-Generation-Lost World pattern of "do x stuff to go the next zone". I hope that we can go to the 4 zone from a get go ? And the leaks saying that the gameplay seems to be repetitive are a bummer, but I'm waiting to see gameplay video about that, as there are some kind of repetitiveness that doesn't bother me too much, and it might have evolved since. But still cautious about that.

 

( I don't really go in the question of "will it suck at a control/basic gameplay level", as I dont have enough material to speculate about that. But I fully understand why people are cautious and don't think it'll be good :') )

[CertifiedNobody]

14 hours ago, KHCast said:

The game length was literally one of the last issues with the series I’d have been addressing. Especially when games like the classics, colors and generations were and still are so praised and replayed 

It's been one of my biggest problems with the series. I'd like games that feel like a full meal instead of a light snack, and if that means adjusting Sonic's gameplay,, I don't mind.

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

Sounds like you’re telling people they aren’t valid in their skepticism. Not a good look when you’re pulling the generic sonic fan “wait and see” responses 

There's nothing wrong with being concerned  or skeptical, but I do feel that some of us are jumping the gun when it comes to critique. Some comments almost come off as if they're judging a hypothetical game rather than what was actually said.

[Dr. Detective]

I think I may be reaching a point where I'm getting a tad frustrated with the nothing they're giving me to chew on, actually.

I feel like I expected combat the instant it was confirmed to be open world so Iizuka coming out and saying there definitely will be that of the "new" variety somehow clarified things less.

God, these interviews are always so useless. 

[CertifiedNobody]

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

This all sounds like a personal bias thing, since 1. Most people were fine with Sonic games being short as long as they’re good and replayable.

Sure, that's a fine way to make games, but it's not the standard anymore. Gaming has evolved a lot and I'd like to see Sonic stand up alongside other big gaming franchises in terms of quality, depth, and length, which hasn't happened since maybe Unleashed.

3 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I think I may be reaching a point where I'm getting a tad frustrated with the nothing they're giving me to chew on, actually.

I feel like I expected combat the instant it was confirmed to be open world so Iizuka coming out and saying there definitely will be that of the "new" variety somehow clarified things less.

God, these interviews are always so useless. 

I don't mind getting a slow drip of news while we wait for the next trailer. It's not ideal but I don't really care.

[Wraith]

The drip feed is fine with me in theory but the first trailer did a really bad job of selling the game and these interviews aren't doing anything to help that. Normally I wouldn't be like 'they should bring on the next trailer asap' but I hope the next thing they show is soon and actually convincing. Game looks and sounds very boring right now.

[KHCast]

33 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Gaming has evolved

If by evolve you mean AAA companies pushing on people the belief that we need big games that have 300+ hours of content to satisfy our human needs, sure, but there are plenty of games that stand on their own, and even eclipse some “modern” AAA games, as worthwhile experiences that people can replay. Megaman 11, Sonic Mania, the crash and spyro remakes, a plethora of Nintendo titles, most of the indie game market, etc. hell, as controversial as it is, I’d even say Resident Evil 3 Remake is an excellent fun time that offers a lot to have the player coming back after the initial first playthrough. This idea that “short games are dead, we as a species have evolved above that drivel” is untrue, as those experiences still resonate with many gamers hence why those games still continue to be created. Not everything has to be some live service or open world Ubisoft experience to survive in todays age.
 

I don’t mind experiences that are “long”. I enjoy persona, and most JRPG’s for example, but not every game needs to be that in length. I also don’t mind the occasional “open world” experience. I like Saints Row for example and Elder scrolls. Sonic going that route in itself isn’t automatically bad, but this idea that Sonic NEEDS to do it cause it “was a problem” before, I think is a bit ridiculous 

[azoo]

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

The way Breath of the Wild chose which Zelda staples to keep and which to drop was surgical and calculated. I would even argue that they didn't really drop many actual traditions at all. The first Zelda game is an open world game for all intents and purposes. The games always focused on this triple pronged gameplay loop of puzzles, exploration, and combat and BOTW carries that through. The artstyle changed, but mostly in ways that made sense from a practical standpoint without throwing the way the series's tone. They dropped bloat like an overt story focus and linearity because it was obvious those took away from the Zelda experience, and added things like a more nuanced weapon system, weather, physics systems and more ways to travel to make the act of exploration more exciting. The overworld focus just brought dense challenges that used to be locked away in buildings on opposite ends of the map out in the field to make the field gameplay worthwhile instead of it just being filler between dungeons.

It's a very considerate restructuring that's ultimately trying to preserve Zelda's true spirit after it threatened to get washed away when the series got overly focused on linearity, suffocating story elements and boring sword combat. Sonic fans so eager to bring it up need to realize that it's reverent of the classic Zelda games, both narratively and mechanically. It didn't just throw everything away for no reason.

A Sonic equivalent to BOTW would be as enthusiastic about the franchise's roots and cut out any bloat that got in the way of emphasizing them. The original Sonic games were linear series of challenges that Sonic could approach in a few different ways with smart movement. A Sonic equivalent to BOTW wouldn't be an open world ARPG. It'd be a linear platformer with a pure focus on movement and arcadey game mechanics that promoted replayability and mastery.

Sonic Frontiers....couldn't sound further from that. Most new additions to the formula seem like they're thoughtlessly strapping stuff on from other action games again which is hard for me to compliment them for. All that really is is just pandering to fans of more successful games when you get down to it. There's nothing bold or creative about it.

I meant that it was trying to be BOTW literally, not spiritually. It is literally trying to be an open world action-adventure game, just like it. Big empty fields, korok equivalents, towers to climb, your friend(s) talking to you as spirits in your head, the whole nine yards. lol

Spoiler

also the true zelda spirit whatever is a farce to me, but I ain't gonna get into that here

 

[Kuzu]

3 hours ago, azoo said:

This game sounds less like it’s gonna be anything of a “beat-em-up” and far more of an action-adventure game. BotW has both combat and traversal as it’s focus, and that’s obviously what they’re aiming to ape. Well, that and PSO2, which Sonic Team worked on (so go figure)!

I’m not a fan of the change from a platformer to an action game either, but look at the past 30 years of Sega and it’s clear that their interests are more for things specifically Japanese, which platforming has never been. If this is another initiative to make Sonic popular in Japan, that sounds about right.

This makes a lot of sense to me given the huge push in advertisement they've been doing in Japan as of late. Sega of Japan have always been trying to get the series off in Japan, often to the detriment of what people actually like about the series in every other region of the world. 

And when you remember that Sonic's classic games aren't very popular in Japan, while the likes of the Adventure games are, it makes a bit more sense when their priorities have moved towards a more action and cinematic direction and Frontiers seems to be following that trend. 

 

I don't necessarily like it, but under that context, it makes sense. 

[Dr. Detective]

24 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

I don't mind getting a slow drip of news while we wait for the next trailer. It's not ideal but I don't really care.

Neither do I. I've been patient for about 5 years now and haven't complained.

But this part of the waiting process has always been the worst. They put out an interview where Iizuka says almost precisely nothing and the fanbase scrambles to squeeze juice out of it while I'm sat over here envious that people are somehow finding things to talk about.

Everything I'm hearing sounds like what I want and what I've asked for. What I've seen of it looks gorgeous. I should be excited but I'm not. That's happened before and it's led to a lot of disappointment.

Waiting is all I can continue to do and it's finally starting to catch up to me a bit.

[CertifiedNobody]

4 minutes ago, KHCast said:

If by evolve you mean AAA companies pushing on people the belief that we need big games that have 300+ hours of content to satisfy our human needs, sure, but there are plenty of games that stand on their own, and even eclipse some AAA games, as worthwhile experiences that people can replay. Megaman 11, Sonic Mania, the crash and spyro remakes, a plethora of Nintendo titles, etc. hell, as controversial as it is, I’d even say Resident Evil 3 Remake is an excellent fun time that offers a lot to have the player coming back after the initial first playthrough. This idea that “short games are dead, we as a species have evolved above that drivel” is untrue, as those experiences still resonate with many gamers hence why those games still continue to be created. Not everything has to be some live service or open world Ubisoft experience to survive in todays age 

I agree that not everything needs to be hundreds of hours long or a live service game, but Sonic is mostly made up of short games, I'd like to have a big game that can keep my attention as long as many of Sonic's competitors can. I can replay Generations and SA2 any day, but Sonic's gameplay and narrative has the potential to thrive in a AAA-esque game, and I think that we should give it a chance at least once.

[Kuzu]

If Sonic games have had consistent problems with length and have had to keep padding themselves out with content, then maybe that's a sign they shouldn't be doing it??? Just a thought. 

[Kazhnuz]

26 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

I can replay Generations and SA2 any day, but Sonic's gameplay and narrative has the potential to thrive in a AAA-esque game, and I think that we should give it a chance at least once

I don't think that Sonic going openworld will make it stand among AAA, not more that they could with a more linear, Adventure-esque storytelling. Sure, they'll have a common gamedesign mechanic (which isn't even a genre, you can make nearly every game style an openworld game), but Sonic will be kinda different than many AAA. At best, it'll be along big Nintendo games (which isn't that bad honestly), but it'll still have a really different style, vision of its world and story design, etc… than most AAA.

As I said, I'm all and unambiguously for Sonic going to this road of making an openworld and something more Action-Adventure : I think it's interesting, and I'm pretty curious to see how they'll design such a game, and integrate Sonic core concept of speed. But I don't think we should see that in itself as something that'll make Sonic "standing with the big one".

( And still be smaller-scalled, because this game will certainly not be a gigantic game like the latest AC or stuff like that XD )

[Dr. Detective]

It depends on the content to me. I didn't have a problem with how long the Adventure games were despite them not reaching the lengths of Sonic's contemporaries either.

There was just enough there to be fulfilling to me and what that means is going to be different for different people.

Sonic's story in Adventure 1 is longer than the entirety of Sonic Forces. It feels better to play, it's designed better, and the story is an actual adventure. Forces being shorter didn't offer it any advantages that I can see.

I feel it's always been perfectly acceptible to ask for longer experiences without it being immediately assumed that the quality is going to suffer or that it has to be as long as a Persona game (as much as I would love that).

Also, as fun as the boost games can be, their style of gameplay does tend to make that tough to do. 

[light-gaia]

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

If Sonic games have had consistent problems with length and have had to keep padding themselves out with content, then maybe that's a sign they shouldn't be doing it??? Just a thought. 

It's a sign that they need to change formula. The boost formula is unsustainable because the games are too short, and they need to put extra content to compensate (such as the werehog, classic Sonic, or the filler stages on Sonic Colors). And because they need to build a lot of assets for stages that last 2 minutes. It's just a waste of resources.

I'm sorry, but it couldn't stand another Sonic Generations, the game only last 2 hours to be beaten, the story is AWFUL, and every thing was recycle from previous games. Sonic Generations is almost as bad as Sonic Forces to me, it's better because the gameplay is great, and the level design is high quality, but it's just as bland.

It's already been leaked that Sonic Frontiers occupies about 80gb of disk space. It's more than games like The Witcher 3. I hope the game has a massive world with a lot of new and interesting environments.

3 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It depends on the content to me. I didn't have a problem with how long the Adventure games were despite them not reaching the lengths of Sonic's contemporaries either.

There was just enough there to be fulfilling to me and what that means is going to be different for different people.

Sonic's story in Adventure 1 is longer than the entirety of Sonic Forces. It feels better to play, it's designed better, and the story is an actual adventure. Forces being shorter didn't offer it any advantages that I can see.

I feel it's always been perfectly acceptible to ask for longer experiences without it being immediately assumed that the quality is going to suffer or that it has to be as long as a Persona game (as much as I would love that).

Also, as fun as the boost games can be, their style of gameplay does tend to make that tough to do. 

Sonic Adventure wasn't a short game for its time, if you compare SA with other platformers from that era, you will see that it had more content than the average.